C.J. Stroud was a highly-ranked quarterback when he entered the NFL Draft this past spring, finishing his collegiate career as one of the best passers in Ohio State history and earning a top-five pick. Yet prior to his first NFL season, he had never been regarded as the headliner, the No. 1, the star.
Be it other quarterbacks like Bryce Young or Caleb Williams, or even his own receiver in Marvin Harrison Jr., there has always seemed to be somebody in the way of Stroud getting his flowers as an elite quarterback — until now. Playing like the best rookie quarterback in football and marching towards an Offensive Rookie of the Year Crown, all while resuscitating the Houston Texans franchise back to relevancy, C.J Stroud is taking the NFL by storm. Let’s dig into Stroud’s fit in the Texans offense, how he’s elevated the unit and what the future could hold for him and the Texans as they advance their rebuild.
This past spring, Stroud was selected by a Houston franchise entrenched in a complete organizational rehaul. After going 11-38 the three years prior with four different head coaches and immense controversy surrounding the franchise’s former quarterback Deshaun Watson, 2023 was to be a turning of the page with the hiring of former San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans and the drafting of Stroud.
Being a defensive coach, an instrumental decision early in Ryans’ tenure was to bring over 49ers passing game coordinator Bobby Slowik to serve as the team’s offensive coordinator, a longtime associate who over the last half decade helped orchestrate one of the most productive offenses in the league under the tutelage of head coach and play caller Kyle Shanahan, a bonafide offensive mastermind.
To sum up the Shanahan offense’s construction and evolution over the years would require a dissertation, but to put it simply, throughout a large part of the last half-decade the 49ers have found tremendous success by employing a heavy play action system built off zone runs, with the goal of beating defenses with finesse in the ground game and and a quick underneath and intermediate pass game reliant on the talent of skill position players. Quarterbacks like Jimmy Garappolo and now Brock Purdy have been asked to play point guard, utilizing their quick releases and accuracy at the underneath and intermediate levels to get the ball into the hands of superstars like George Kittle, Christian McCaffrey and Deebo Samuel as quickly as possible to maximize yards-after-catch (YAC) production.
Slowik has brought a similar system to Houston, which Stroud has operated to near perfection – through six weeks, he ranks fourth in passing yards (1660), ninth in pass TDs (nine), and eighth in passer rating (96.4), while the offense ranks eighth in total yards (2084), 13th in yards per play (5.3), and eighth in offensive success rate (42.4 percent).
Sure, these stats relate to the offense as a whole as much as they do to Stroud. But when considering that the Texans rank 22nd in total rush yards (533) and 30th in rush yards per attempt (3.2), it is clear that the passing offense led by Stroud is what’s doing the heavy lifting in elevating the unit.
So how is Stroud doing it?
For one, he’s excelling at throwing with accuracy at the underneath and intermediate levels, hitting his receivers with anticipation and consistently good timing while displaying the ability to either rifle throws into tight windows or toss with touch to allow for YAC opportunities. His processing looks extremely polished for a rookie, as he’s already showcasing the ability to diagnose coverages pre-snap and execute multi-progression reads with a changing picture.
Take the fourth-quarter go-ahead TD in the Texans’ Week 5 loss against the Atlanta Falcons, for example. Stroud told reporters in a press conference last week that he actually altered the route which tight end Dalton Schultz scored on — after seeing the Falcons in a two-high safety coverage shell, Stroud changed Schultz’s route to a vertical to exploit the coverage hole, resulting in a score – all this from a rookie in his fifth professional start.
Stroud has also taken very good care of the football, another indication of his already advanced mental polish. Prior to his lone interception against the New Orleans Saints last week, Stroud set a record for pass attempts without an interception to start a career with 186, beating Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott’s previous number of 176.
Stroud has clearly thrived in the Texans offense, which begs the question: if the Shanahan system has been so successful in creating offensive productivity, has Stroud’s success been just as manufactured as that of previous Shanahan quarterbacks like Jimmy Garappolo or Brock Purdy? The answer is a definitive no. The key difference is that while Stroud has been a phenomenal point guard, he’s also been the engine behind the Texans’ offensive success, more so than Slowik’s offensive design or the Texans’ supporting pieces.
For one, having been drafted to the second worst team in football, Stroud is not in a great situation. All year he’s played with Nico Collins, a third year player whose previous career high in receiving yards was 481, and 31-year-old Robert Woods as his top two targets, while operating behind a shaky offensive line that has seen four of its five starters miss 19 games combined through six weeks. This is not San Francisco or Miami, where Stroud would get to throw to All-Pro talent at the skill positions or operate in a clean pocket. The Texans offense is far from a finished product and has seen much adversity, yet Stroud has elevated the unit in a way which Shanahan quarterbacks have not been required to.
Stroud has done this through his excellent processing ability and accuracy, yet also through an added wrinkle which the Shanahan system has not really seen outside of a few flashes by Brock Purdy — creation ability. Despite being knocked by scouts and draft analysts alike for showing little ability outside of structure in college, Stroud has shown plenty of ability to play-make in the NFL, displaying a good feel for pressure and the agility and short area quickness to escape the pocket and create a throwing window or scramble for significant yardage. So far this season, he ranks ninth among QBs in total EPA, or expected points added (+23.2), a clear indication he has manufactured success for the Texans offense out of nothing.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. To this point, Slowik has constructed the Texans offense around heavy play action and underneath-intermediate concepts to best fit the team’s current personnel — the Texans have a true bruiser at running back in Dameon Pierce, and receivers who do their best work in the underneath and intermediate areas like Nico Collins, Robert Woods and John Metchie.
Furthermore, the heavy play action is a clever way of adding “training wheels” to Stroud’s development as he learns to process and operate at NFL speed – through the threat of a run, play action pass concepts bait linebackers and safeties to come down into the Box, creating an easier coverage picture for quarterbacks. However, as he gets more experience and the Texans rebuild moves along (say, with the acquisition of a true No. 1 weapon like Tee Higgins via free agency or or Malik Nabers through the draft), there’s no reason Stroud couldn’t develop into one of the best pocket passers in football, and the offense couldn’t reach the heights of other high-octane pocket passer led units like those of the Cincinnati Bengals, Dallas Cowboys or Los Angeles Chargers in years past.
I’m getting ahead of myself here, but the point is that Stroud and the Texans’ future is bright, and it’s about time we give the Ohio State product his credit — through six weeks, he’s the clear front runner for OROTY and is enjoying a rookie season on par with those of Justin Herbert and Cam Newton. He’s helped re-energize a moribund Texans franchise into relevancy, elevating a rebuilding offense into one of the best units in the league through his accuracy, decision making and creation ability. The future in Houston is brimming with promise, and it may very well only be a couple of years before we hear Stroud’s name in MVP conversations.